The Tribune newspaper reports that the Royal Bahamas Police Department arrested a U.S. passenger from Missouri over the weekend for allegedly raping another passenger on an unidentified cruise ship.
The Bahamian police is holding the U,S, citizen for "indecent assault" of the cruise passenger of a female on Saturday morning.
The newspaper says that "shortly after 9am a female visitor on a cruise ship moored at Prince George Wharf reported to police that she was indecently assaulted on board by the suspect, who is also a passenger on the ship."
We have seen cruise ship sexual assault cases prosecuted in Bahamian courts before, but we have never seen a Bahamian jury convict anyone for sexually assaulting a woman at sea before. Sexual assaults, in our view, should always be reported by the cruise line to the FBI or the police departments of the U.S. port where the cruise ship is home ported. The FBI / DOJ and Florida prosecutors have jurisdiction to prosecute U.S. citizens on cruise ships even thought the crimes occur on the high seas or the territorial waters of a foreign country.
The Bahamanian newspapers often do nor identify the name of the cruise ship or cruise line to avoid embarrassing them. Many cruise lines are flagged in Nassau to avoid U.S. taxes and regulations.
Photo Credit: "Prince George Wharf in Nassau Harbor" by TampAGS, for AGS Media – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons / Wikipedia